"I am very pleased with this turn of events," said Baykal

ANKARA, September 15 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Facing stern warnings from the European Union, the Turkish government stepped back from a plan to introduce a motion into a crucial penal reform bill to make adultery a crime punishable by prison.

After a surprise 20-minute meeting, opposition leader Deniz Baykal, flanked by two top government ministers, told expectant reporters Tuesday, September 15: "No motion that does not bear the signatures of both parties will be submitted to the assembly," reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Baykal's social-democratic Republican People's Party (CHP) had always opposed the adultery clause.

Although none of the men even mentioned adultery, it meant the plan by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) had died a quiet death.

"I am very pleased with this turn of events," Baykal said, stressing that the bill to do away with Turkey's 78-year-old criminal code, adapted in 1926 from that of Benito Mussolini's Italy, was the result of more than a year's work, often at bipartisan level.

Flanking Baykal along with the AKP Justice Minister Cemil Cicek, Foreign Minister and Deputy Premier Abdullah Gul told insistent journalists: "Do not reduce the whole reform bill to just adultery."

Gul is acting for Erdogan, who is on an official visit to Tajikistan.

Casting a Pall

"Turkey does not deserve this. Everything is openly discussed in this country," said Gul

Gul deplored before his party caucus that "a clause that does not even exist" is casting a pall over "an important and radical reform."

"Turkey does not deserve this," Gul said. "Everything is openly discussed in this country. ... The Assembly will meet and the deputies, who represent the people, will act according to what they believe and what they deem to be right."

Ruling party deputies interviewed on the parliamentary television channel before an AKP caucus Tuesday morning were unanimous in deploring that the single issue had overshadowed all the other work done on the bill.

The bill brings heavier penalties to the crimes of torture and child molestation; it forbids downgrading virginity tests, often conducted at will on women suspects; it bans child pornography, child abuse, the trade in human organs, environmental pollution and computer piracy.

The AKP -- which has its roots in Islamist movements but describes itself as simply "conservative" -- and Erdogan had defended the adultery clause as part of efforts to "protect the unity of the family."

But leaders of the European Union, of which Turkey hopes to become a part, had joined a growingly vocal Turkish opposition to denounce the plan, with Britain, Spain, Germany and the EU Commission openly warning that it would damage Turkey's EU bid.

An EU candidate since 1999, Turkey awaits a crucial October 6 report by the EU Commission that will recommend whether to launch membership talks.

The report will serve as a basis for a final decision on December 17 by European leaders on whether and when to set a date for the start of negotiations.